Jiang Ruan leaped down from the roof beam and stood in front of Hua Yi, a faint smile playing on her lips, her meaning ambiguous.

"Boss, it's been a long time!" Hua Yi's eyes held joy, resentment, helplessness, and melancholy. His face looked extremely complicated with these mixed emotions.

"Hua Yi, you've hurt An Xia once, and now you've hurt her again. What, are you going to carry on with your scumbag tendencies to the very end?" Jiang Ruan said self-deprecatingly. After all, she had trusted him a lot, and this outcome was not what she had expected.

Hua Yi's smile vanished. She pushed An Xia aside and walked to within a meter of Jiang Ruan, saying, "Boss, you once said that I would help you achieve great things. You trusted me, and I lived up to your expectations by doing a lot for you. But why don't you believe me anymore?"

His expression was ferocious, and his words were harsh, as if he had suffered a great injustice.

However, Jiang Ruan knew that this was just his disguise; he was used to doing this.

"Hua Yi, forget about all that. I only have one question for you: Li Ming and An Chun, did you do something to them? You don't have much contact with them, so why would you do anything to them? Tell me yourself, what exactly happened?" Jiang Ruan demanded.

Hua Yi burst into laughter upon hearing this, without directly responding to Jiang Ruan.

He lightly struck a gong, and zombies filed out from behind him, surrounding the group.

Jiang Ruan squinted slightly and counted them briefly; there were about thirty.

“Boss, didn’t you want to know the truth? Come on, kill them, and I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything, including what you most want to know: the real cause of your death in your past life.” Hua Yi spread her hands and left the encirclement, taking An Xia with her as she went.

At this point, only Jiang Ruan remained in the encirclement.

Jiang Ruan looked at the menacing zombie that seemed ready to devour her at any moment and sneered, "Hua Yi, you overestimate me."

These zombies wore uniform clothing and did not have any grotesque appearances such as green faces, fangs, or snarling eyes. They were clearly of a high level, though not quite at the level of a zombie king, but just below it. One or two such zombies would be troublesome enough, but there were more than thirty of them all at once.

Jiang Ruan is someone she can't fight against.

I didn't expect to be so hasty this time. I thought there would only be one outside. After knocking it out, I rescued Zhang Yang and left with An Xia. But this unexpected turn of events happened.

Hua Yi was indeed well-prepared.

Jiang Ruan took out a pistol from her side, intending to shoot all the zombies, but Hua Yi stopped her: "Don't use the gun. You know that zombies of this level are not afraid of these. Besides, even if you kill a few, what about the others? It will probably cause a riot, and then I will be in trouble. Of course, if you insist on using it, that's fine, but I will just throw An Xia in first to protect myself."

Hua Yi was certain that Jiang Ruan would give up using a gun for An Xia's sake.

Sure enough, upon hearing this, Jiang Ruan put away his gun, took out a longsword from the other side for self-defense, and chopped off the zombie's outstretched hand as it charged at him.

With a "snap," the other hand also fell. The other zombies showed no fear or retreat; instead, they mustered all their strength and charged forward even more forcefully.

Jiang Ruan used her agility to fight back, engaging in a life-or-death struggle with the zombie horde for thirty minutes.

"Ah..." In the end, two fists can't fight four hands. Jiang Ruan was exhausted and weak all over. The high-intensity fight had exhausted her strength, but she couldn't leave with peace of mind. An Xia was still in his hands. Even if An Xia was willing to betray him, Jiang Ruan wanted to give her another chance.

After all, the kindness from their past life still lingered, and she couldn't possibly abandon her.

As Jiang Ruan was once again struck aside by the remaining zombies, Hua Yi spoke up: "Boss, beg me, if you beg me to let you go now, I will immediately make these zombies stop, and I will disregard our past and pretend it never happened. How about it? This is a great opportunity, boss, don't let me down."

Jiang Ruan spat out blood with a "pfft" and said calmly, "Hua Yi, do you think I would beg you for a few zombies? I can't learn your attitude back then, don't worry!"

Hua Yi seemed to have guessed that Jiang Ruan would not compromise, but he had never been a good-natured person; he had only acted that way in the past to gain trust.

His gesture reversed, and he quickly woke up the zombie king and called him over.

"You want crystals, right? What this person has will make you a hegemon, allowing you to reign supreme and even become a god!"

Hua Yi said to the zombie king that he was determined to do it; if he couldn't have it, he might as well destroy it.

Jiang Ruan was already exhausted, and it was her limit to barely deal with the remaining few zombies. She didn't expect the zombie king to recover so quickly.

Upon hearing Hua Yi's words, the Zombie King indeed chuckled excitedly again, saying between laughs, "There's food, and it's usable, I like it!"

After saying that, it pounced on Jiang Ruan without any hesitation. Jiang Ruan tried to dodge, but it still scratched her shoulder.

"Hiss..." Jiang Ruan gasped in pain and immediately cast a healing spell to stop the bleeding. However, due to the excessive physical and mental exertion from the battle, the healing spell was less effective, only temporarily stopping the bleeding but not allowing the wound to heal completely.

Looking at the gruesome wound on her shoulder, Jiang Ruan frowned, inwardly frustrated. She knew the situation was unfavorable; if she couldn't recover her physical and mental strength quickly, she might be in danger.

But she couldn't leave Zhang Yang and An Xia behind.

Anxia might be spared harm because she has some use, but Zhang Yang will not be.

I just barely managed to put his severed limbs back on.

Because the parts that had been eaten were contaminated with the zombie king's venom, she tried to remove as many unusable parts as possible, leaving most of the parts that were still usable.

This saved his life and his legs for the time being.

As long as we can take him away, relying on Zai Zai's phoenix and our own Azure Dragon, it will be enough to restore him to his original state.

Hua Yi frowned deeply upon seeing this and urged again, "Boss, you can't beat them. Surrender now and I can help you. You will still be the one in charge, and I will wholeheartedly and truly accompany you."

Jiang Ruan didn't even glance at him, focusing on fighting the zombie king, but was thrown heavily to the ground due to exhaustion.

At the critical moment, a masked man appeared and blocked the zombie king's charge with a beam of light, knocking it and Hua Yi aside.